Play Unused Audio "Laura's Letter" #1185
Conversation
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Oh wow! Talk about a cool and unexpected PR! Thanks for taking the initiative and doing this, Sonderhen. This was a regularly requested feature for the project over the years, so it's really cool to see it come alive now. For the longest time, I didn't think it'd be feasible due to the dialogue all being in a single audio track. Well done making this work. 👍 I picked the brains of some of the other teammates and we wanted to ask if it's possible to change how this is handled? As a whole, with the game, cutscenes (especially those with audio dialogue) can only be skipped by pressing start. Can this feature mirror this type of behavior to where the audio autoplays and the text changes in sync with the dialog, no user input needed? And, if the user press start/skip at any point during the note, it'll exit the note and end all cutscenes (return to gameplay)? This request is unusual in nature as it'd be modifying/customizing the game's note reading mechanics, so please let me know if the request is asking too much. |
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I'm very happy that you liked it. I’m working on this suggestion and I’ve already managed to get almost everything done. The only thing I haven’t been able to implement yet is triggering the cutscene skip command when the SKIP (Start) key is pressed. At the moment, pressing SKIP only stops the automatic playback and the voices, leaving the player to manually advance the text as in the original game. If in two days I’m not able to get it 100% the way you want, I can update the PR and you can evaluate whether it could be approved even without skipping the cutscene when pressing Start. |
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Thanks for being open to modifying the feature!
I don't know if this approach is feasible, but at the end of text strings in the
(I'm not sure what these bytes look like in the Here is what this overall string looks like through the SH2MSGConvert tool: Perhaps if the user presses SKIP it advances to the next text string but the next text string is instead the injected byte(s) to fool the game into ending the text event? (Basically injecting our own |
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Thank you for your help. |
- Automatically plays the audio when starting to read the letter. - Automatically triggers the action button to proceed to the next parts of the letter. - If the player presses SKIP, the entire letter cutscene will be skipped. - Prevents the player from pressing the action and cancel buttons while reading the letter.
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Sorry for the delay. I've managed to implement the requested changes: now, when the player starts reading the letter, the audio plays automatically. Manual text skipping is disabled, but the player can still skip the entire scene at any time by pressing 'SKIP'. While it's 100% functional, I feel my implementation might not be the most 'elegant' solution. To auto-advance the letter text, I’m currently simulating/injecting the action button input, as I couldn't find a more direct method. I’m open to further suggestions or modifications if you think it's necessary. If any future requests turn out to be outside my current technical reach, I still appreciate the opportunity to contribute. 2025-12-21.13-59-18.1.mp4 |
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Love this. Thank you! I was actually testing it prior and it's working really well, overall. I found a couple other issues, if you don't mind:
All things considered, the approach you took of injecting user inputs to advanced the text has been handled well. I Alt + Tabbed out of the game while it was happening and the game simply waited for focus again to proceed to the next text/voice string. I agree that it'd be nice to have it 'work' even when the game is out of focus, but you did a good compromise. I'll tag @mercury501 and @Murugo to see if they have any ideas on how the letter can be fully read even when the game is out of focus. |
- Added support for the ESC key to skip the letter cutscene. - Fixed a bug where audio would continue playing after leaving the letter screen (e.g., Quick Load). - Added a 1-second delay before the first automated action input.
…Silent-Hill-2-Enhancements into PlayUnusedAudioLetter
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Oh, I had completely forgotten about the QUICK LOAD option — thanks for pointing that out. I’ve pushed a new commit addressing the three fixes. The requirement for the game window to be focused is an intentional limitation of the current automated action button input approach. The automated action input cannot be triggered unless the game window has focus. I think addressing this would require a different strategy. If this behavior is considered essential, it would require a different approach, which I haven’t been able to implement yet... 2025-12-21.16-03-02.1.mp4 |
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Nice! Thanks again! I believe that covers all fringe cases with the feature. Well done!
I personally don't think it's essential to have it work that way. I think your approach is quite nice. I did want to tag some of the other folks on the off chance they know of an "easy" solution to make it continue playing while not in focus. However, I don't think it's necessary. |
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Oh, also, I will be revising the "PC Credits" FMV at some point. I will be sure to include your name in the "special thanks" section (along with on the website). Really appreciate your great work here, Sonderhen. Thank you again |
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No immediate ideas on the playing on focus loss, it'd probably need to be reimolementrd as they said, I wouldn't touch Che actual focus loss code since it could bring a miriad of other issues |
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Thank you very much. I really appreciate the feedback :) |
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@elishacloud this is good to be merged upon your review/convenience. Thanks and Merry Christmas! |
3 participants
During Laura’s letter scene, the unused audio file “SCENE_45”, is played.
The audio is triggered in specific time intervals that match each corresponding portion of the letter as it appears on screen.
For each different text on the screen, it will play a different audio excerpt.
Tested in all languages
Silent.Hill.2.Unused.Laura.Letter.mp4